FOSS, Mastodon, and Moderation with Mark Wyner

In this episode, I deviate from dictating my blog posts and instead interview a friend of mine, Mark Wyner, to begin a series of episodes on free open source software (FOSS), specifically in this case, the FOSS that provides me a tolerable social media network called Mastodon, an instance of which Mark volunteers to moderate.In this episode, we introduce FOSS, go into some of the more nuanced thoughts we have about the distinctions between "free software" and "open source" software, explain things like the Fediverse, decentralised social networks, Mastodon in particular, and what it's like to be a moderator on an instance of Mastodon.Note: I have done more research about the history of the "open source" term in some contexts being used synonymously with "free" and want to be clear that I no longer think this was a politically smart move for those who made it. It now seems to me that it was not such a noble intention driving the use of the term, as I had imagined might well have been the case before.If you have any feedback or want to hear about certain topics more than others, please send me an email at [email protected] or reach out to me on Signal at resl.17.Mark Wyner's article on what it's like moderating a Mastodon instance can be found here.